Have i made the wrong choice?

[Astro_Baby]

I'm probably wittering on here but I did have similar issues. I bought into a largish reflector (8") on an HEQ5 which was (if I am honest) more of an emotional choice than a rational one. It was the sot of scope I used to want when they cost the price of a family car and I used to have my face pressed up against the window of a telescope shop in London and sigh.

The problem was being a flat dweller in urban light pollution hell a smaller SCT may have been a more rational choice but I happen to like reflectors so I went ahead and bought it and found on the first few nights of using it it was (a) damn near impossible to steer on the EQ mount ( damn near impossible to lock on to a target because getting a fix and then star hopping with a heavy scope on an EQ mount is hard work and ( my sky knowledge had depreciated to a very low value and it was hard to find things- made harder under bad skies. On top of that lot lugging a scope tube, 10kg of weights, the mount, tripod and an eyepiece case all made the thing a real chore.

I had started in the sure and certain knowldge I could learn the sky. 3 months of non stop cloud, work commitments, and other hassles convined me otherwise but the final straw was a star party under good skies. There were so many stars visible through the finder I was endlessly lost. I resolved after that to get a red dot finder to help out and it did a bit but not enough.

I had used a small refelector years ago on an EQ and not found it hard so I imagined a bigger scope would present no challenges - that ignored the fact that a 4-5" refelector can be easily steered (harder as the scope gets bigger) and that 20+ year ago even living in Portsmouth I could see stars at night and a short trip in my old Triumph could place me into a dark sky area which wasnt likley to be true of living near Gatwick. In truth I had not realised how bad light pollution is.

Wearying of lugging such a monster telescope about, and that included a period of about 4 months where, having found a dark sky site to use, I would drive to the site, set the gear up just in time for clouds to appear and finding there was no chanceof any seeing getting done.

Imagine if you looked out the window and saw it was clear but before you could observe you had to go and sit in your car for 2 hours. Now imagine that after you have sat in the car for two hours its cloudy but you cant just go back indoors you have to sit in the car for another 2 hours. Ask yourself under those conditions how long you'd stay interested. Try it next time its clear - pack all your gear in the car and then drive around for 2 hours then unload it, load it back again, drive around for anothert 2 hours before going home. Thats precisely what I faced.

So I resolved to get a smaller, lighter, more portable telescope. Steve at FLO advised me to get a short tube refractor but instead I bought the Nexstar 4SE because I wanted, on top of the portability, something with GoTo. The big climb down I call it because I had by then realised my chances of learning the night sky had diminsihed to a very low order of probability. The Nexstar duly arrived and I found it to be excellent. OK we couldnt see the Andromeda galaxy in all its majesty but at least we could see something which was a vast improvement on having a telescope that could see stuff better but only if you could find it which often meant a 2 hour drive to see nothing at all - its pretty disheartning you know to spend a whole evening looking at nothing. Something to think about here is even an 8" scope wont show a lot of stuff as more than a few faint puffs of smoke.

Its not as if your comparing hubble to a Nexstar 4SE in the quality of the views. Your merely exchanging one puff of grey smoke for a slightly bigger one. OK a bigger scope will show more of everything but lets face it its not as if a 8" or 10" or even 12" scope is going to show you a beautiful Horsehead nebula and espcially unlikley under English skies. Yes M57 will be bigger and better but only IF you can find it. Sometimes it seems as if people with tons of knowldge gained over years cant seem to understand how frustrating it is for a novice to go out night after night and get to see nothing.

On top of actually finding some stuff the Nexstar showed us Neptune (my firts view of it) ok it was a tiny blue dot but it was still a view. Over time the Nexstar got used far more than the 8" which sat mournfully in the living room underused (actually never used).

Finally I bit the bullet and went for a GoTo upgrade on the 8". Now that was a mixed blessing. On one hand it made the 8" more usable and therefore I was more inclined to lug it about with me knowing I could actually find things, the downside is the HEQ5 with GoTo required a powertank so more weight to lug about. BUT given that I could now have the best of both world the 8" suddenly became the scope of choice to take despite its bulk and weight. A GoTO 8" reflector is the ultimate for me - any bigger and I cant carry it around so it represents the maximum aperture I can realistically own.

The 8"s rehabilitation is not to say the Nexstar sat unused. On average nights with poor seeing and when I couldnt be bothered to drive for 2 hours the Nexstar was used locally for viewing the moon and Planets. Without it my interest may have waned even with the 8" and GoTo. Its simply too much effort sometimes to lug that amount of kit - other nights you may only have clear skies for a few hours.

Recently I acquired the TAL 100RS which is many ways was possibly the scope I SHOULD have bought instead of the Nexstar 4SE. Its easily the best planetary scope of my collection (actually its not - my Skymax 180ED would pip it but the SKymax is a hanger queen - its long cool down time has meant its yet to be used and its sits under the bed waiting for its chance to win me over). The TAL hits, for me anyway, a sweet spot, Its relatively light, at least compared to the 200, its has a simple but effective mount and the whole lot can be packed and ready to go as fast as the Nexstar 4SE with one big advantage - it gives extremeley good views of any bright object and because its puirely a bright objects scope it doesnt need GoTo or power - I can find M13, the Pleaides, the double cluster without any help at all.

So its not really , to me at least, as clear cut on aperture as is sometimes stated. Its part of the equation but it cant ever be the sole consideration or else we'd all be queing up to buy a 40" Obsession Dob. Some people seem to hate GoTo but they often seem to be people who have plenty of time, live in a cottage in a dark sky site etc. For those on a time budget and with only limited accessibility to a dark sky location GoTo is a boon, portablilty also and in some cases both of those trump aperture. Personally I think a 10" scope you cant use or wont use will always be trumped by a 60mm scope that you can and will.

[pvaz]

Astro Baby, I understand your point of view and I respect it. In fact I thought of 2 things as requirements when I researched a scope (my research included reading your excelent reviews):

1) A very fast to setup and easy to carry scope.

2) GOTO in case learning the sky is (was) too hard.

So I got myself an 8" dob, with a nice aperture but I can pick it all up in 1 go and, as it's cool in the garage, I set it up in 1/2 min.

I did pay almost twice the value of a skywatcher 8" dob just to have Goto (PushTo to be accurate).

With one of this I can guarantee all your problems are solved. There's no hassle with EQ mounts, no need to recharge power packs, just a spare 9v battery just in case, in average a 9v battery gives you 5 very long sessions of goto. It's easy to carry and setup (put it down, remove caps, observe).

I did find out later I enjoy to star hop rather then use the GoTo but I turn it on when I spend over 30 min looking for an illusive NGC or when the seeing is so good I don't want to waste it looking for stuff. Now I recon I would be better with a XT12i dob as I would still carry/setup it easilly, with 2 trips instead of 1, and would still have GoTo when needed.

All that said, my dark spot is just outside the door so I don't really know what's to drive 2 hours to find one. In fact, if I did drive for 2 hours in any direction I would pass over 30 dark spots for sure (small island with 57000 inhabitants)!

EDIT: What I really mean to say is: You don't have to settle with a small scope, there are solutions with large aperture, fast to setup, with enough portability and goto available.

[RobH]

Not wittering at all AB.

You make some excellent points, and do so very concisely.

Cheers

Rob